In Appendix D may be found the report of Captain Pietuchow on the Siedlce pogrom, in which is quoted the following utterance of Colonel Tichanowsky: “We must set against the terrorism of the revolution a still more frightful terrorism.” And this is what the officials of czardom are doing to-day. And the terrorism of the government is not only a “more frightful terrorism” than the “terrorism of the revolution,” it is the most frightful and the most monstrous terrorism of modern times, because the forms of government are converted into the tools of absolute lawlessness, and the victims of this terror are often the helpless among the people of the empire—women and girls thrown to the lust of Cossacks, old men and children the marks of police brutality. In the chapter on governmental terrorism, and in the appendix, there is adduced overwhelming evidence, and proof, of official complicity and governmental connivance with this terrorism. Beside the terrorism, the brutality and the ruthlessness of the Russian government, and the soldiers and officials acting in the name of the Russian government, the most heinous offenses of the people pale into insignificance. Individuals are human, and there comes a snapping-point when the sturdiest intellect can no longer beat back frenzy. But a government! A government, surely, cannot be exonerated on these grounds. Madness, desperation, passion should never possess the government of a great empire. If it does, then is the incapability of that government amply proven, and its fall deservedly imminent.
After the dissolution of the second Duma the Moscow “Viedomosti,” a reactionary organ, printed the following:
The population of Russia amounts to some 150,000,000 souls. But in the revolution not more than 1,000,000 are inclined to take any active part. Were these 1,000,000 men and women shot down or massacred, there would still remain 149,000,000 inhabitants of Russia, and this would be quite sufficient to insure the greatness and prosperity of the Fatherland.
I myself heard a prominent Russian officer coolly advocate the immediate execution of two million men and women judiciously chosen from every section of the empire, in order to stamp out the movement toward constitutionalism!
As for the attitude of the Czar himself I have a conception which is based on careful observation, but which may be at variance with popular opinion in America. I believe that the Czar considers himself a God-ordained autocrat. I believe that he aspires to hand over to his heir and successor as absolute an autocracy as he inherited from his fathers. Elsewhere I have quoted a remark said to have been made by the Czar in 1906 to the effect that he believed “Russia could go for twenty years more without a constitution, and he purposed to do all he could to guide Russia back to where it was before the manifesto of October, 1905.”
Everything that has transpired in Russia since these words were spoken points to their truth. The manifesto was wrung from the Czar by the sudden tide of revolution which for once caught the government unprepared. The granting of the constitution was like oil upon troubled waters. But as soon as the government had recovered from the shock it sustained through the revolutionary activity culminating in the general strike, it began quietly to take back everything that had been promised.
The first Duma elections were seriously menaced, then on the eve of the meeting of the parliament its powers were substantially reduced. During the sessions of that body insults and rebukes were heaped upon it, and finally it was disbanded. The elections for the second Duma were still more seriously restricted, and although Duma number two was in many respects an advance upon the first Duma it was presently dissolved upon a ridiculous pretext. It will be no surprise if the career of Duma number three is quite as short as that of the others, and if at the dissolution of it the government will say, in effect: “We have now experimented with parliamentary government, and the people of the country have shown their unpreparedness for self-government”—with the announcement of an indefinite postponement of further Duma experiments. This is practically what happened in Turkey. And in Russia itself, one hundred and fifty years ago, a similar incipient experiment was made. If this should occur now the world may well believe that the Russian government never had the faintest intention of introducing parliamentary government at this time.
As for M. Stolypin—I believe him to be a shrewd, able administrator. I do not believe for a moment that he has liberal sympathies. In this I consciously take issue with many able writers, and even old and tried Russian correspondents. A member of the Constitutional Democratic Party, a deputy in the first Duma, a prominent university professor, who sat on a commission with M. Stolypin, and who had unusual opportunities for studying the premier, said to me: “I believe M. Stolypin to be the strongest man the government has, but a fanatic
